Emotional Compass and Moral Relativity

I have a question that has been eating at me for a few days (moments really, I am prone to exaggeration). Does music shape our feelings? Or do we choose to listen to music that reflects and echoes our sentiments? Do I listen to Smashing Pumpkins because I am listless, or because I want to attain feelings of listlessness? Do I put on emotions like t-shirts? Or do they emanate from the toxic stew of stress that is my existence? My good friend The Comrade made me a mixed CD that has taken up permanent residence in my car player. Postal Service, Bright Eyes, The Dears, and The Arcade Fire, along with countless other songs that meditate on the directions of life. Here's a little taste of what I have been listening to.


lately i've been wishing i had one desire
something that would make me never want another
something that would make it so that nothing matters
all would be clear then
but i guess i'll have to settle for a for a few brief moments
and watch all dissolve into a single second
and try to write it down into a perfect sonnet
or one foolish line
- Bright Eyes, A perfect sonnet

I think about the compass in my car and how it tells me which direction I am heading in. I think about the compass inside my head and it's not as clear. For the first time in my life I am questioning myself about what I want. Why do I not want anything for myself? Why am I happy? I have stress and anxiety and yet I remain happy. It doesn't make sense. I think I set my standards for what makes me happy too low. Or maybe I was just wired for happiness. I wake up happy every morning. Which is nice, but now I yearn for that compass to kick in and help me find a direction. I need to know what I want. I need to want things, and not fear failing to get these things. I find it ironic that my struggles to find direction should reach an apex while I was visiting the airport today.


Airports are a real interesting place to observe the depth of human emotion. Confusion, relief, desire, indigestion, and most importantly incredulity at having to pay ten dollars for a slice of pizza and a pop. People saying hello and saying goodbye, people lost and people found. Long halls and long haul flights. Lovers languishing in limited moments before liquidity. If you ever need a recalibrating of your emotional compass, try sitting down in an airport lounge and taking your life to task. For some it may take a few minutes. Everything might make sense and you get up and take your luggage and live with it. Some might never leave. The grip of the past can be tenuous and cold. We store memories with the chemistry in our body. That's why the perfume a loved one wore will always stay with us. We store our successes and our failures hidden in our cellular structures. We rely up on our memories to get us through the rough times. I sat in the airport lounge today paralyzed by the decisions that forged my path. Luckily for me my cell phone rang, it was a customer, because I might have been stuck in a parabola of questioning and self-justification. The type of circuitous logic that befalls most raccoons moments before becoming road-kill.

We use our memories to relate to other people. Moral Relativity is something that has been on my mind of late. It's defined thusly:

"The term ‘moral relativism’ is understood in a variety of ways. Most often it is associated with an empirical thesis that there are deep and widespread moral disagreements and a metaethical thesis that the truth or justification of moral judgments is not absolute, but relative to some group of persons."
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-relativism/

I know that I don't dance to the same tune as most people. I don't wreak vengeance upon the dammed. I've been treated pretty well in life and I try and pay it forward when I can. I have to exist with people who are very different than me. They chew on the bitter rind of unfulfilled aspirations and they live on the pain of others. They have given up on trust, and they revel in the pointlessness of life. The giant cosmic joke is on me because I choose to believe in the power of positive thought. There is so much in this world we cannot control. But the one thing we can choose is to take a positive view of any situation. To eschew the conflict and focus on the harmony of life. To sit in that airport, watch the world hustle by as you sit still, with the only movement in your growing shadow. Tremble with the maelstrom of doubt as it thrashes in your head. Then be done with it when the bell (or cell phone) rings. When the fight is over, dust yourself off and smile proudly. I've badly needed to recalibrate my compass and redefine my sense of moral relativity. I was starting to believe in others and their judgments and suggestions. The best piece of advice that anybody has yet to give me is to "believe in yourself".

To end this blog I wanted to share another snip of lyrics from the aforementioned CD. The first song spoke to me about the definition of emotional compass, and this speaks to me about moral relativity. Both lyrics use the word dissolve, and I think that it speaks to the universal truth of the impermanence of life. Changing nature of states, eh?

You think your days are uneventful
And no one ever thinks about you
She goes her own way
She goes her own way
You think your days are ordinary
And no one ever thinks about you
But we're all the same
And she can hardly breathe without you

She says she has no time
For you now
She says she has no time

Think about the lonely people
Then think about the day she found you
Or lie to yourself
And see it all dissolve around you
-Keane